🔤 Glossary

The jargon of work, money, and taxes, in plain language. Terms appear as hover cards across the site's calculators too.

Alternate base period

A second wage window many states check when you do not qualify using the standard base period.

The stretch of past wages a state uses to decide whether you qualify for unemployment and how much you get.

The right to keep your employer health plan after leaving a job, by paying the full premium yourself.

Social Security and Medicare taxes, withheld from wages and matched by the employer.

A form payment apps and marketplaces send when your payments for goods or services cross a threshold.

The form a business sends for payments to a non-employee contractor.

Federal unemployment tax, paid by employers on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages.

The letter a state sends after you file, showing the wages on record and the benefit they produce.

The law setting minimum time to consider a severance agreement that waives age-discrimination claims.

A reduced unemployment payment for a week in which you worked and earned something.

A deduction of up to 20% of qualified business income for many self-employed people.

Payments made four times a year on income that has no tax withheld from it.

A payment level that protects you from an underpayment penalty even if you end up owing more.

The form household employers use to report nanny taxes with their own tax return.

The Social Security and Medicare tax paid by people who work for themselves — both halves.

Pay outside your regular wages — bonuses, severance, commissions — which employers may withhold from at a flat rate.

An annual earnings ceiling above which a particular payroll tax stops applying.

The gross unemployment payment for one full week of total unemployment, before any deductions.